There is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,485, issued Dec. 10, 1974 to Robert G. Hogan and assigned to the same assignee as the present application, a core member for use in a catalytic oxidation converter for internal combustion engine exhaust gases, such core member comprising a cylindrical body of refractory material which has a plurality of relatively minute passages extending therethrough from one planar end or face of the body to the other in a direction generally normal to said faces and linearly parallel with the outer periphery or longitudinal axis of the cylindrical body. In the manufacture of such core members relatively long lengths of refractory material are cut into shorter lengths by a suitable cutting blade such as a saw to provide lengths suitable for the core members. Such refractory materials are brittle and oftentimes, during said cutting of said relatively long lengths of material, intolerable chipping of the edge thereof occurs just prior to or at the finishing of a cut through the long length of material. This may be likened to cutting through a length of wood wherein it is well known that towards the end of such a cut substantial care must be taken in order to attain a clean cut, that is, in order to assure that tearing or chipping of the wood does not occur just prior to or at the finishing of the cut through the wood. Accordingly, the clamping apparatus of the present invention was developed in order to minimize, to the extent possible, the aforementioned chipping of the cut edge of a length of brittle refractory material when such a length is cut into shorter lengths.
Other objects and characteristic features of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.